The Mental Load of Kids Sports: Gymnastics Edition

In this episode, we’re talking about the mental load of kids sports — and more specifically, the chaos, cost, logistics, and emotional weight of youth gymnastics.

After getting home at 9:30 p.m. from a competition the night before Easter, we realized just how much family labor goes into even “entry-level” sports. From practice schedules and competition fees to leotards, siblings, snacks, seating, school absences, and managing disappointment, it’s a lot.

We also get into the harder parenting questions: How much do you push? How much do you let your child lead? And how do you keep sports meaningful without becoming “those parents”?

If you’ve ever packed for a three-hour event where your child competes for four minutes total, this one’s for you.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

All right, welcome back to Mental Load Chronicles. So we got home at 9 30 p.m. last night from a kid's sporting event.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

A 10-year-old. 11? She's 11? Be 11. 10-year-old's kid sporting event.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Yeah. That's a sentence I never thought I'd say as a parent.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

On the night before Easter.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

On the night before Easter, no less, during Passover.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

And one of her friends had the event on Good Friday during the school day.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

During the school day. She had to miss school during the school day on Good Friday for the same gymnastics event. So today we're going to talk about the mental load of kids' sports, but specifically, we're going to talk more about gymnastics. Yeah. Because that was our experience last night. Yep. Which blew me away. Absolutely blew me away. So I I here's where I'm really stuck is that she's not even at an intense competition.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

No, she's she's at she's at bronze, which is the lowest level you can compete at.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Correct. And most gyms don't even have bronze. Correct. Some are starting to do it because I think they're starting to see it as cash flow and no expectation.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

And they can charge you the same, they can charge you the same uh participation fee.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

And yeah, it's it's great.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Yeah. So we pay for her monthly gym fees for her to be in the gym twice a week. Uh-huh. We pay the USA gymnastics, whatever, whatever. Uh-huh. And then yesterday they charged us at the door to come watching.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Yeah, this is a second event. The first event was five dollars a person. This one was eight. Uh-huh. So it's like you're you're paying all this. And then on top of that, you have to pay to go watch your kid compete.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Yeah. And on top of that, it's it's entry-level chaos. It's not even, I'm almost afraid of what mid-level and high-level chaos looks like. Like, what does this look like when she's a gold or a gutffin or a you know, magenta? I don't know, whatever. Sapphire.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Yeah, come on.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

I yeah, I'm learning. I'm learning.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

You are, you're doing good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Well, and we all, right? Like we're all starting to learn this world of gymnastics, which is the other piece that you have to do. It's not like when your kid plays a sport that either you played or you're familiar with. I played no sports growing up. I was a gymnast until at the age of nine, I was five foot four, and my legs were like no longer my legs, they were someone else's legs, because I grew super, super, super fast. In like three years, I grew from basically normal child height to like adult height, like that. Yeah. And so, not knowing what to do with that, I quit gymnastics because I was just limbs flying everywhere, flailing everywhere. She, on the other hand, is built like a gymnast and I think has the poise and the confidence of a gymnast. She does. She does. Um, and really wants to be doing this, like really, really, really wants to be doing this. Um, but I thought we would talk about some of the things that we were kind of mildly talking about yesterday and have been as a family because there is mental love that goes along with that.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

You you here's the thing. You use and and and I I vent about uh travel baseball because I grew up playing baseball and and our our son is not old enough to be doing much of anything in baseball yet. But uh like I love baseball, I want him to get into baseball. I want nothing to do with travel baseball. Yeah, like listening to people whose kids are like 13, 14 years old going to different states for tournaments. Like, what are we doing?

SPEAKER_01 3:32

I mean, if he's 17 years old and he is one hell of a baseball player, sure, absolutely at that point you probably have to travel for season competition, right? If you're actually being looked at as and scouted for college baseball, that's what it is anymore. But it's not. It's like it's like it's like seven-year-olds are traveling, flying on airplanes.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

Well, that's the thing is, and you haven't seen nothing yet. If you think the gymnastics costs are bad, wait, where do you whether you're buying a brand new thousand dollar bat every year?

SPEAKER_02 3:59

Oh my god. Right?

SPEAKER_00 3:59

A brand new $400 gloves. It depends on the content ones you get, yeah. And then you're paying for uniforms and hats and bags because everybody's got the same gear bag, right? Batting, you know, bat bags. Yeah, you know, and all that. And it's it's it's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

And then you're spacing that last night.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

That's the other thing too, is then you're going overnight, right? Because if you go if you go somewhere you have to then you're paying for hotels, then you're paying for you know food eating out, you're doing, and then you're dry, you know, and so like, oh, that's just like four months out of the year, you're just spending every weekend at a different tournament that you're having to drive or fly to. Like, it's insane. That is insane.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

It's insane. Well, and I was noticing that last night that like, so our gym that she's at now, they do the Leo, the matching Leo, and there was a fee for that. And she was very disappointed about the Leo because it was not a competition Leo. And it's not, it's a warm-up Leo at best, but they did charge us competition fee pricing for the for the Leo. And then all these other girls watching. Yeah, Leotard for her line. Right. Yes, yes, thank you. Right. We're learning the lingo. And yet all these other girls walk in with beautiful competition leotards, and they have the long sleeves or the three-quarter leg sleeves, and they're glittery, and you know, and that's what these girls expect. And so she's really bummed about the leotard. But, you know, then I'm looking at the other girls, and like our gym said, just buy a long sleeve zip-up hoodie that is black with nothing on it, no logos, no nothing. And then wear black pants. And then I looked at some of the other gyms last night, and they had like whole, they had the matching warm-ups, the matching sneakers, the matching bags, the matching, yeah. And I was like, oh my gosh, at bronze level, like that's probably a $500 kit just for just for the couple of competitions that they'll do for the season.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

So for the mental load chronicles, yes, there's a mental load that goes along now with youth sports. Huge. Like it's not what it used to be. It's not, it's not what it was when I was growing up.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Like, tell us about so because I don't understand that.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

So again, like, so I so here's the thing, like me and my buddies, we play, I'll I'll use baseball as an example. That was the major sport that I played. But like every day over the summer, we would meet up at the park at like the same time, like 10 o'clock in the morning. You played baseball for a couple hours, you'd go home, you eat lunch, or you'd go to somebody else's house and their mom would make you lunch. And then you go back to the field and you play for another couple hours, and you'd go home. And then you'd you'd have, and you know, in the in the uh I grew up in a city called Berkeley, Michigan. There was the Berkeley Dad's Club, is what it was called, and it was just a local rec league in this small town outside of Detroit, and you'd have two games a week. And you typically that went on for two months. You typically played 16 games, and you'd have one practice a week leading up to the season, and then once the season started, you didn't have practice anymore. So it was like a three-month thing where it was like one again, and and the field is in the middle of the city, so it's like you know, it's like one of the small fields walk up to it. You walk or ride your bike to practice. Yep. And then again, and then what was great about it was you were playing the other, there was normally like 10 teams, you know, and you were playing against the other kids in your school. And there was I was all about bragging rights, right? And talking crap to each other. And it was, it was, it was, it was great, right? Like that and and that went from you know, aged six or seven to eighteen.

SPEAKER_02 7:11

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

And that was great.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Yep, yep. Well, and now we've got all of these things that we have to do. And and I do think it's probably sport dependent because uh my brother played hockey, and that was pretty intense trying to get to the rink at 5 a.m. or whatever time for ice time or like swimming, same thing.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

If you have a swimmer, they start at the crack of dawn.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

And it also wasn't travel, right? Like, I think he played a lot of really, really local teams because he'll talk about playing teams in Colorado where like some of them went on to be professional baseball players, and he's like, Oh, I got to play that guy. Yeah, and like that's really cool for him. But he was able to do that in Colorado. He didn't, from my understanding, he didn't fly a lot of places to go play hockey. So even though it was extreme of having to be at the ice rink at ungodly hours of the morning and all the gear, and you talk about expensive gear, hockey equipment and ice time and all the and all the other stuff. Yeah, yeah, all the fees.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

Yeah, I just I went, we were getting uh our our middle, who we're talking about was a gymnast, also was doing some figure skating. So I took her to get her skate sharpened and and she didn't get seriously into figure skating, it was more of just like learning to skate type of stuff. But I priced out like what a set of goalie gear would cost for me because we used to play street hockey, and of course, you know, street hockey with the goalie equipment isn't super expensive for screwing around on the street. Yeah, but it was gonna be like four grand to get like a set of goalie equipment.

SPEAKER_02 8:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

It's like, oh my god. Yeah. So like if your kid's a goalie, yeah, you're looking at dropping four grand just on the equipment. Before we talk about ice time, before we talk about any other league fees or anything like that, you're you're four grand in. Four grand.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

I mean, it's insane. The the whole thing is insane. And I think, you know, too, I was thinking last night about like the logistics load of all of this, of her practices, her open gym times, because she'll ask us. So let's talk about open gyms.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

So let's talk about that. The the the the logistics on top of the financial stuff, which we already talked about. Yeah, she has um an hour and a half practice from four to five thirty, Tuesdays and Thursdays. So again, as both of us being working parents, yeah, we have to we have to get her to practice, which means we gotta leave here our it's about 15 minutes away. So we gotta leave our house at 345. Yep. And then an hour and a half really isn't long enough to go do anything. No. So typically one of us will drop her off, one of us will pick her up.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

Uh so anyway, it's hard though, because she has to be in her practice Leo, she's gotta be ready, her hair's gotta be shut up.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

She, you know, she runs home from school because school ends at 245. Yeah. So she's got less than an hour to walk home from school. Well, then our work days aren't really done by then. And so that's the that's the jug. I'm typically if I'm driving her on a phone on a meeting, right? Or making a phone call or checking my email at stoplights.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

Yep. Yep. Right. But it's but that's a lot. The logistics of that, of the practice of the open gyms. Open gym is from 7 to 9 p.m. on Friday night. So the last thing you want to do, like getting her there, 7 o'clock, okay, fine, whatever. Picking her up at nine o'clock at night on a Friday night when you just want to be in Jamie's and sitting on the couch.

SPEAKER_02 10:13

After a long week.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

Yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot. So, I mean, so we've got all of that. Then we've got the competitions. And we talked about her competition was on Saturday before Easter, Saturday night before Easter. Her friend who's in a different level competed on Friday and had to miss school.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

So good Friday.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

Yep. And so, I mean, you just got like all of these.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

When you want to talk about like mental ill, like like imagine they don't have a ton of competitions. No. Right? So for the competition fee that you pay, you got things of three competitions essentially.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

No, it's about five. Okay. About five for the season, but still, five. So five. So you pay the thousand dollar competition fee. Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

Right. So then you're talking about, oh, so I don't want my kid to miss school. Right. To compete in a in a sport because it's not, you know, we're talking about like, you know We're talking about fifth graders. Well, some of them, right?

SPEAKER_01 11:04

Some of them are younger.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

Some of them are younger.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

And some of them are older. I mean, we learned last night that some of them are like seventh grade. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

But still, like at the end of the day, you're looking at a a a spread of like first to seventh grade. Yep. And depending on how early they started. Yep. And now you have to talk, think about like, oh, am I taking my kid out of school?

SPEAKER_01 11:22

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

Mm-hmm. How early am I getting him out of school?

SPEAKER_01 11:25

For a competition. For a competition. And you have to take the day off of work. Right. Because who's getting them there? Got to take the day off of work. Gotta pull the kid out of school. I mean, it's it's just insane. And then, and then there's the piece that we didn't even think about last time because we went to our first competition, I think, really naively. I have experience going to college gymnastics and cheering them on. And so I just naively thought, like, well, we'll have a seat and we'll buy a ticket or we'll go like whatever. And we were in the world's smallest bleachers. I mean, they had to be built for elves. Like, that is the only explanation for those bleachers being as small as they were, is that they were built for elementary schoolers or elves because they were so tiny. You could not get past, you couldn't get up and get out of the past.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

No, anytime somebody had to get anybody, anytime somebody had to get up to get out of the thing, the whole row had to empty.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

And then we brought our son, and I just naturally thought like the the competition would keep his attention because he's been to college gymnastics meets and he's been fine. But that they they they put on a shirt. They have the Jumbotron and they have the cheerleaders and they have the t-shirt CNN, and you're in an arena and right, and you can walk around the concourse. And he was bored within about 15 minutes. Yep. And we had brought the Nintendo, but that didn't keep his attention. And then all these other kids, I looked at their moms. They had brought huge bags, like beach bags. Like we're going to the beach for the day, and I'm bringing all the beach toys and the towels and the snacks and the and then he complained about being hungry. And I had like my emergency purse bar, but that was about all I had with me. And he didn't like the emergency purse bar. So then he wanted to go to the concessions and buy all kinds of junk food. I mean, so this time, so last night, I do think we did a better job of like having a backpack for him and having the iPad and having the snacks and having the stuff. And he left early because it was bedtime. But it's not just the gymnast that you have to coordinate their schedule. It's not just the parents. Now you got the siblings that you're bringing with them. I looked around at the last meet, and there were moms who had to prep for three other siblings, like young siblings, coming to watch these gymnastic meets, and they're like three hours. When you think about award ceremonies and all of that warm-up, you're there for about three hours. It's like packing for a plane flight for a really long time.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

Well, I think that's a great way of putting it.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

You gotta stay in your seat. You have to behave.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

So you're so you're not only worrying about getting the gymnast prepared and they're on time, but you're also preparing like either a babysitter for your other kids or stuff for them to do so that they're not distracting you as you're trying to watch your because that's the other thing, too, is the way these gymnastics meets are set up is they have four events and they rotate between them, but there's so many kids that like they I I give them credit because it's like a well-oiled machine. And if you blink and you're not paying attention, your kid could be done with their portion of the event.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

Yeah, you missed their event.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

It's only you know, the last one is at this level is like maybe a minute. Yeah, floor, right? Yeah, with a floor routine. Yeah, floor routines are like 45 seconds. A vault is 20 seconds.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

That's it.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

Right. And so like if you're looking at me, maybe right. Yeah, yeah, it's like run, run, run, vault, run, jump, come back, run, run, run, jump, done. Right. And so if you if you blank, yeah, like it was funny because our son needed to go to the bathroom last night. I took him to the bathroom, I came back, and and our daughter was done with the vault. I'm like, what happened?

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Right, right, right. Well, and also if they're first, or are they last? And so you're trying to hyperfocus.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

On top of that, again, you're trying to make sure you don't miss your kid. And and again, what's what's what's hysterical is like it's a three-hour event. Your kid will participate for maybe four minutes total combined.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

Oh, yeah. Maybe, maybe, maybe, yeah, yeah. Five if they get a medal for anything, right? And so it's like it's insane.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

You're talking about sitting there for three hours for four minutes.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

Yes. And you can't really zone out. Like I thought last night, boy, I probably should have brought my laptop. I could have gotten a whole bunch of work done while we were here.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

Well, I'll teach you how to do that. Don't worry. I because that's what I did. I had a final four-on as I was waiting between.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

Well, yeah, no, I mean like work work. Like office work. I thought I could bring my laptop and actually get some stuff done, or maybe multitask with our personal lives, because I was lamenting to you the other day about how much I have on my personal to-do list. It would have been great to get that done. But the minute you look down and you get engrossed in something, you miss your kid, and they don't announce them like they do the collegiate meets. Yeah. And there is no roster posted somewhere where you see like where we are in the order and who's going. You just gotta watch. You are just paying attention and your kid is waving to you constantly from across the gym. So I guess that leads me to the next piece that we were talking about last night because the first meet that we went to, fortunately, she meddled. Yes, she could. She meddled twice. It was great. Um, and she also had a really on day that day. Yesterday, she had an off day, and she hasn't been stretching as much, hasn't been practicing as much in between. And, you know, we we picked her up. So award ceremonies are over. I'm kind of watching her face from a distance, seeing the disappointment on her face. We pick her up. She's trying to say goodbye to grandparents. We're kind of walking out the door, and I'm watching her well up. I'm watching the crying build on her face. And we walk out, and you did the thing that you do when someone's sick in the hospital or something. I made a no-time joke. And I looked at you and I went, not now. Like I just mouthed it to you, and you got that oh crap look on your face. Like, what am I missing? I can see the you hear her crying. Yeah, and I've got my arm around her and I looked at your face, and you felt so bad because you were like, Oh crap, I didn't realize she was crying.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

No, I was trying to just make light of it, but you know.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

But I could see it welling during the award ceremony where her name wasn't called. And I could see all these girls constantly coming up and getting more medals and more medals. Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

But then from a from a mental load standpoint, though, now the question is like, um, how much do we lean in to push her to to to do better? Yeah. Right. Because it to me, it's like it was a great night. And if if she ends up being a great gymnast, last night will be one of those nights that led it there, right? Because she didn't do as well as she did the first time. She can't she learned that she can't just show up and and meddle, that she's actually got to put in the work. And then the question becomes, are you gonna put in the work or not?

SPEAKER_01 17:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

Right. And then and then that's what determines everybody's success or failure, right? Like, you gotta own it. Now, here's the thing how much do we lean in and how much are we gonna try and push her to that versus how much does she gotta do it herself? And then, like, that's a that's a tough thing.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Well, and we were even talking about it last night as we crept toward medals and we were talking about her scores and talking about, you know, tonight really wasn't her night. And she was, she was just off. She fell off beams. She doesn't fall off beam, like not regularly. Yeah. And so, and certainly not on the skill that she was trying to perform, she just lost her balance. I mean, it just was sort of that one of those nights where you're like, Yeah, you're just not, you're just not having the best night. And we did tell her that in the car on the ride home that you know, she has watched college gymnasts and not have a good night. And just we talked about, and it was funny because you even said to me at one point, okay, but let's not talk about that with her tonight. But then the conversation kind of went there. And I even asked her, I said, Do you think today would have gone better if you had stretched and practiced in between and done just been better about doing it? And she said, Yeah. And I said, Okay, so what does that teach you? She said, I gotta do it. And it's like, Yeah, you gotta do it, you gotta put in the work. So but I don't know, because we've really lamented that, especially now that we've gotten our taste of gymnastics competitions, and what does this look like? It's a lot, it is a lot, it's a lot on her, it's a lot on us, and and is it the right time to have her in competition gymnastics? And I think we've asked ourselves that. And so it's like, all right, you've got to put in that work. But like you said, how much do you you don't want to be that parent, right? Cheering your kid on and going, oh my gosh, or or the guy who was there with the the camera and the lens, like he was at an NFL.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

He he had that that had to have been at least a three or four thousand dollar lens on that camera.

SPEAKER_01 19:51

That was insane, and maybe he's just like a sports photographer, and that's his gym.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

It was that was uh hell of a that's one of those lenses that the mount for the monopod is on the lens, not on the camera body. Yes, because the Kit loves lens is so big and heavy. Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

But the other thing was it wasn't like he was casually in the back taking pictures. No, he was like creeping around people's chairs, he was shooting over my shoulder. I mean, he was, yeah, I could you smell his breath?

SPEAKER_00 20:18

Like, because I felt like it's kind of funny. I was like, if you want to rest the lens on my shoulder, go for it, you know.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

That you would be his monopod for him. But I think that's hard, right? How do you manage her nerves, her reactions, our feelings about the situation? Because we want her to be practicing more and putting putting effort into it. We just talked about how much.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

Well, and to me, like here's the thing this isn't about um, you know, I think with with me, I I love sports. Sports help make me who I am today. I played pretty much every sport growing up. Baseball was my was my biggest one. But like you learn so much from it that I want to give her that opportunity to have the same things that I had when it comes to sports. Yep. Even though I I hate the way youth sports are operated today. But that being said, um I I I'm taking my lead from her. If this is gonna be her thing and she's gonna put in that work, then I'm willing to, I'm willing to sacrifice what I need to sacrifice to make sure she gets the opportunities that that she wants. But if she's not going to put in the work, then it becomes much easier for me to say, yeah, this this isn't something we're gonna do.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

Yeah. Well, and when I was doing some research for this episode, that is by and large, on different um Reddit threads and blog posts and whatever. That's the question that parents ask themselves and ask each other is how far are we going with this thing? And there are the parents you see that I mean, there's reality TV shows based on them of the dance moms and the right. And then we talk about the girls, um, our oldest who was there for a little while with our youngest and then took him home for bed, was telling me, Yeah, mom, there's a girl her age who dropped out of school, is only homeschooled now because she Spends her entire school day, what would be her school day in the gym, and then is homeschooled in the evenings for her core curriculum, and then is in the gym all weekends, and she's training to be an Olympic gymnast. But it's like, I'm sorry, what? Yeah, that's the level you gotta go to.

unknown 22:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Right. Like it, like that is what it is.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

But it's insane. And then parents are like, how far do I take this thing?

SPEAKER_00 22:25

And that's all here's the thing. If that's where she wants to go and that's what she wants to do, then she's driving that train because I'm not gonna be dragging her out of bed at 4 30 saying it's time to get to the gym.

SPEAKER_02 22:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

But it's what if she's dragging herself out of bed at 4 30, I will be up at 4 15 to make sure she's got a ride.

SPEAKER_01 22:43

Yeah. Well, and that's there's so many parents struggling with the mental load of how much do you push your kid? How much do you let them lead? Because there are moments, and we've all experienced it growing up. There are moments where you you are that kid getting up at 4 15 in the morning, pushing yourself, driving toward that goal. But then there are months or weeks where you're like, I just want to sleep, or I just want to, how much as a parent do you push them in those moments?

SPEAKER_00 23:09

Yeah, but I think like to me, it's it's um it's about this is the best. That's why, again, this is why I love sports. This is the best opportunity to teach your kid how to um prepare for success. Because the same stuff, the same lessons that you learn overcoming adversity, um, struggling through things, that that you know, not being great at something right away and having to really work at it to be great at it. Yeah, like like those are the lessons that you can apply to everything else in life. You know what I mean? Yeah, like getting my butt kicked by football, you know, that to me it was well worth it because you you get absolutely destroyed on a plane, and then you have to make that decision like you're gonna are you gonna give you 30 seconds to get your butt up, get back to the hut and get the next play and be ready to go. Yeah, so what are you gonna do?

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Yeah, yeah. Well, and she experienced that last night where you know, she didn't have the best bars routine. Next was beam, and she stumbled on beam and fell, and then she still had to compete on floor. And it was like I was nervous at that point about her floor routine because she didn't have the most successful bars, didn't have the most successful beam. And I've watched elite gymnasts struggle with that final rotation because now you're in your head. Now you're like, well, I'm having an off night. Now I'm now I'm really struggling. And then she killed it on floor. I mean, I thought she did. Yeah, she was. I know her score wasn't what we thought maybe it should be, but I also don't understand the scoring. Yeah, but no, but she was good. She was good, she's solid, she didn't fall out of anything, she didn't trip, she didn't write. And so the things that she got deductions on were minor deductions. It wasn't like, oh my gosh, she really blew it. And so I think like you said, those are the moments that will teach her grit and determination, and um, that you can come back from a bad event, a bad day, a bad week, a bad month. I mean, how many people as adults have a bad year where you're like, okay, by 2025, I'm looking forward to 2026. Yep. But you have to be able to say, okay, next year we'll be better, next month we'll be better. So I love that. So one of the things that we talked about too is and that we've been unpacking together is about the mental load in general of these things. So we talked about logistics, we talked about emotional mental load, we talked about the um time that this takes us, all of the different things. So the partnership load in this, which is primarily why we're doing this podcast. So who tracks schedules, who handles packing, who manages emotions at the meets, who sits where, who takes the videos, who sets up things with the grandparents to come attend or whatever. And so I wanted to ask, like, what do you think your job is when it comes to gymnastics? And what do you think my job is when it comes to gymnastics? So that we can figure out, because we're in it now. We're clearly doing this gymnastics thing in our house.

SPEAKER_00 26:05

You know, I I think for where we're at now, um, I I think is, you know, it is what it is. But I think moving forward, if this is gonna be a serious thing that she's gonna push through, you know, she's gonna have to make up some lost time, so to speak, because she did start a little bit late. So if she's gonna keep moving forward, she's gonna have to make up that lost time, which is gonna mean more uh open gyms, you know, more sessions in the offseason, all that stuff. And so uh maybe some one-on-one coaching, you know, to work on individual skills and that kind of stuff. So I would be happy to help her if we're gonna once we make the decision if she's gonna move forward with this after the season, to help her lay that. And I think that'd be complete part of the decision point too, is to like lay it all out and say, if you're gonna do this, this is what it's gonna take. Do you do you want to do that?

SPEAKER_01 26:50

Yeah, yeah. Because right now, I feel like at least for this year, for this season, I have primarily held both logistics and emotions. And so I I wonder if we tackle it as a part of the year, like with you know, school days and work camps and things like that, and maybe figure out in our household this is how we're gonna fare sports. So I just think maybe a conversation as our kids get into whatever the next season is or the next year of athletic competition before the season starts to set expectations so it doesn't fall on any one person.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

Yeah, that sounds good.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

Cool. All right. Well, thank you for joining us for this episode and uh we'll see you next time. Wait, I can't put that in.

SPEAKER_00 27:36

See you next time.